Dive Brief:

• There are actions and inactions, perhaps just habits, that can lose opportunities, sometimes before you find out if they could have been profitable engagements.
• Some of the things not to do involve checking your decisions for blind spots, such as assuming a potential customer could not afford your services or would be hard to work with or letting some imagined slight get in the way of pursuing a customer's business.
• Other business-killing actions are actions you do not do, such as not answering inquiries promptly, taking too long to make decisions, or taking too much responsibility for work your staff could do, thus becoming your own roadblock.

Dive Insight:

Pam Lontos is a business consultant who focuses on marketing, and she sees businesses of all kinds getting their own way when it comes to attracting and converting leads into sales. In a sense, her advice list 10 ways that you can lose money you have no desire to miss, and sometimes it is simply a matter of trying not to make all-too-human mistakes in dealing with other people.